A words in context question with a concluding blank tests which word follows from the whole passage. Read for an earlier view and a later finding, then ask which view the conclusion follows. Use the finding to predict the blank in plain words, including what the words after it add to its meaning. Check each choice by its meaning in the full sentence, because a word can point the right way and still say something the text doesn't show.
Hints
- Hint 1
Start at Das's finding after however and connect it to the final sentence.
- Hint 2
Look for who puts the events together and how the possible sequences relate to one another.
- Hint 3
Read past the blank and ask how the description after as differs from the description after rather than.
Step-by-step
Follow the turn and predict the verb
Step 1Follow Das's conclusion
merely delaying the moment when scattered events cohere gives the usual view: the events will fit together once enough time has passed. Whose view must fill the blank? For Das, then, marks his conclusion, so the blank follows Das's finding, which comes after however.
- Step 2
Work out what the sequences show
Das finds several internally coherent but incompatible sequences even at the end. How can they be both coherent and incompatible? Each makes sense on its own, but they conflict with one another, so finishing the novel doesn't reveal one settled account. The phrase each assembled by the reader adds that readers create the coherence: the connections come from how someone arranges the events, not from one fixed order in the novel.
- Step 3
Predict what the verb must express
The final sentence calls coherence a provisional achievement of interpretation; provisional means open to change rather than final. What must the verb do with that description? Predict describes coherence in a new way, because the sentence explains what coherence is, not when it arrives. Stabilizes means makes steady, which conflicts with provisional. Discounts means treats as less important or believable, which is about value rather than how readers create coherence.
- Step 4
Distinguish allowing from describing differently
Which verb connects coherence to the description as a provisional achievement of interpretation? Permits means allows, so it says coherence can happen without saying how Das changes our understanding of coherence. Recasts means presents in a new way, so it names the change in how coherence is understood, rather than whether coherence is possible. Choice D.